Red Hot Rebel - Olivia Hayle Page 0,92
her building. Her hair is a golden braid down her back, her skin free from makeup. She wraps her arms around her body.
“Hi.”
I push off from the wall, taking a step closer. “Hi, Ives. Thanks for coming out.”
She nods, looking past me to the busy street beyond. My whole body feels taut, like a drawn violin string. If only I knew the notes to play. “Still jet-lagged?”
“A bit,” she says. “It’s getting better.”
“It’s been quiet, not being around you for the last week.”
“I thought I spoke too much,” she says, but without any real conviction. “Grated on your cynicism.”
“It could use being grated on,” I admit. “You’re not with the agency anymore?”
She looks down at her hands, twisting them in her grasp. Like the rest of her skin, they’re tan from our days in Bali. A real tan, this time.
“I quit.”
“Good.”
Her lips twist into a sardonic smile. “It wasn’t because I’ve suddenly started hating modeling.”
“Of course not.”
“It’s just… They never liked that I tried combining work and my studies, and I don’t want to work for an agency that holds dropping me over my head like that.”
“Not to mention the pressure to grow your social media.”
She nods, her gaze flicking past me to the street again. The air is uncomfortable between us.
Things unspoken.
“I’m proud of you for quitting.”
Her gaze returns to mine. Surprise burns there, together with a deep-seated mistrust that shames me.
“Ivy, I—”
She shakes her head, cutting me off. “Please thank your sister for driving me to the train station. I didn’t mean to take up part of her Sunday.”
“She didn’t mind.” The cold hand of fear grips my insides, that she won’t want to hear me out. That the open, trusting look in her eyes is lost forever to me.
“She’s nice. Your entire family is, Rhys.”
“They are. Thank you.”
She nods, looking past me. “I told your father that your photography is amazing. Perhaps it’ll help.”
She’d stood up for me. The knowledge sharpens the pain in my chest at her distance. I don’t want to say the words.
I don’t want to hear her say them.
But I start the conversation anyway. “Let me explain what you saw on my computer, Ivy.”
“Do we have to?” she whispers. “It won’t change what they proved.”
“They didn’t prove anything. Only that I’ve worked on and off as a photographer for a decade, and that has included professional models, some of whom asked me to photograph them nude. But there is no other meaning to them, Ivy.”
Something breaks inside me when her eyes line with silver, as she refuses to look at me.
“Ivy, trust me on that.”
“I feel so foolish,” she whispers. “About the whole thing. Like I’ve been playing out an alternate reality in my mind, and all of a sudden it broke.”
Pain grips its claws in my chest. “You haven’t been foolish, Ives. Not the least.”
But she just nods. “The things we’ve done… I’d never done them before. And to realize they meant so little to you? I was part of a bet. Thrown in for good measure as a joke between two guys.”
“The things we did meant a lot to me.”
She runs fingers underneath her eyes, turning them heavenward. Her shoulders curve inwards. “Perhaps not nothing, then. But not the same as to me. The women I saw… have you slept with them?”
I won’t lie to her, not ever again. “A couple, yes.”
Her breath turns shaky. “Right. And you never promised me anything, either. I’m the one who was stupid enough to expect them anyway.”
“Please,” I tell her, “expect things from me. I want the chance to live up to them.”
She looks down at her feet, her throat swallowing. “We had fun, at least.”
“Being with you was never just about having fun. It was never something I took lightly. And it wasn’t planned by Ben.”
“He said he chose me because I’m your type.”
“He doesn’t know my fucking type. We see each other every now and then, and I once had a blonde girlfriend. He extrapolated. Incorrectly, too.”
“So what is your type?”
“You,” I say. “Just you.”
Her mouth curls into a self-deprecating smile. “He chose me because I annoyed you at a party in the Hamptons.”
“He’s an idiot.”
She closes her eyes, like she can’t face me. Like it’s easier to pull away.
I understand the impulse. For so long, I’ve thrown myself into what’s new and risky and easy, instead of what’s challenging. Running into new battles instead of staying and fighting the ones I’m in.
But not again.
“Ivy, do you know the real reason why